Welcome to Thriving Writers

Why Join Thriving Writers?

We bring together writers ready to level up their craft and market knowledge to explore new writing techniques and trends, so that we can refine our storytelling abilities, gain publishing insights, and inspire each other's creative journeys.

The Results You'll Get

Our community, courses, and events are designed for writers in transition toward their next big breakthrough. Whether that's finishing a draft, becoming more creative on a regular basis, submitting for publication, or navigating the published author journey.

• Accountability: Make the most of your precious time by engaging regularly and developing a writing habit that cements your responsibility to your creative self, and your new champions and supporters.
• Community: A combination of minds, ideas, insights, and motivation is at the heart of this group. We're not just using "community" as a tired buzzword. Writing is a solitary endeavor, but magic happens when we come together to support one another.
• Learning: As a matter of course, we're offering a rich collection of live, recorded, and downloadable craft and publishing industry resources for you to enjoy at your own pace to supplement your ongoing growth and inspiration.
• Process: Writing is a journey, and your product isn't just one manuscript. It's you. Every moment you spend here is an investment in yourself.

Here are some features you can look forward to when you join us:

• Interactive chat, discussion, resource-sharing, polls, engagement, and live and asynchronous opportunities to workshop your writing.
• Like-minded members identified by experience level, favorite genres, and target audiences, so you can easily find other writers who are aligned with your passions and goals.
• Support for your journey through courses, events, live Q&As, and an ever-expanding library of resources.
• Accountability and inspiration in a dynamic hub that's built around the unique needs of creative writers.

You Belong Here If...

In designing this one-of-a-kind community, we want to bring like-minded creatives together. This membership is for you if:

• You’re in transition and feel the next step in your journey is within reach. With some perseverance, guts, and elbow grease, you really feel like you’re ramping up for your next level, whether that’s getting an agent, publishing your debut, or reigniting your backlist.
• You’re naturally curious and love to learn. If you want to sharpen your industry knowledge, pivot toward traditional publication, learn indie publishing strategies, build your author platform and marketing toolbox, write for pleasure, submit to literary journals, serialize a web novel … whatever! Craft doesn’t care what you do with it, and the skills we’ll explore together are applicable to many different scenarios.

• You want to give as good as you get. One time, a writer applied for one of our workshop intensives and said she wasn’t interested in giving feedback. She just wanted everyone else’s notes on her work. Wrong answer. Wrong attitude. Only by giving freely of our creative selves do we grow. We want to spend our time with people who’ll be generously engaged because they know a rising tide lifts all boats. Writing is a solitary endeavor and we need one another for morale, accountability, and growth. If you don’t yet trust that it’ll come back around to you, you’re not ready.

• You’re excited to give constructive feedback, understand a writer’s intentions, and make an actionable difference in their storytelling. We're not looking for writers who want to poke holes simply to show how smart they are, or to glorify their own work (which we've found to be a hidden sign of insecurity). We’re all in this together.

• You’re open-minded and read widely. You’re always scanning for your next great book, mentor text, industry article, or craft technique, and you want to share what you find and ignite discussion.

• You’re not precious and you don’t cling. Yes, you’re fiercely committed to your work, but you also realize writer’s block is an illusion and ideas are everywhere. You’re not afraid to pivot as you refine your ability to generate your next great story.

• You’re dynamic, show up, and are maybe slightly goofy and unhinged, too. (Said with love! 😉) Writing is supposed to be fun, right? Most days, that’s easy to forget. If you want to surround myself with people who can see the humor in this crazy endeavor—who do the work on their good and bad days—you've come to the right place. Because we're right there with you.

But This Isn't for Everyone

Not every writer will be a fit for this membership, and that’s by design. We are serious craftspeople who aren’t just interested in merely striving or surviving. We're bringing together writers who thrive. 

Joining this group will not be a good fit for you if:

• You’re obsessed with product instead of progress. Sure, most writers want a book deal with a Big-Five house or New York Times best-seller status. But you can’t control what the industry and market do. You can only control your own process. The product of any writing journey isn’t a single manuscript—it’s your creative self.
• You’re competitive with fellow writers. Challenge yourself all you like—a fighting spirit often gives us motivation. But we're not interested in writers who tear one another down or can’t celebrate someone else’s good news or Publishers Marketplace announcement. Writing is already full of rejection and disappointment and we shouldn’t be adding more.
• You collect theory without putting it into practice. The goal is actual butt-in-chair time, not endless preparation. Having information is wonderful, but if you don’t use or play with it, you’re not making actionable progress.
• Everyone who’s ever given you critique is an idiot who doesn’t understand your genius. This tells us you aren’t yet mature enough in your craft to make good use of feedback. You don’t have to take every note you’re ever given and blindly follow it, but reactivity has no place here. If you can’t ascribe positive intent to writing notes, you won’t do well in this group.
• You don’t have time or the idea of a community makes you feel overwhelmed in advance. We're not asking you to spend hours a day with us. But if you haven’t yet figured out how to make time for a regular writing practice, we'd rather you go and do that instead. Add a community to your mix later, but don’t stretch yourself thin, or you’ll never get your actual work done.
• You’re not ready to commit on every level. Your contributions, your energy, your creativity, and, yes, your money. If you’re planning on joining something and forgetting all about it, or buying the resource and getting around to it … later, you’re better off elsewhere. Community is what you make it. It’s not a one-way street, nor can it be sustained only by one expert blathering from a podium. (Yes, Good Story Company has been putting out information for years! But we've added a community to the mix because we're not longer convinced that a megaphone is the only way to truly transform anyone’s writing life.)

One Year From Now...

One year from now, where will you be in your creative endeavors? 

• Will you finish the first draft of the book you've been dreaming about since childhood? 
• Will you finally crack self-editing to take your revision craft to the next level?
• Will you leverage a new marketing and self-promotion mindset and skill set? 
• Will you be gearing up to query literary agents with the strongest and most confident submission package you've ever produced? 
• Will you have endless new ideas fighting for your attention, when before you only believed you were capable of one?
• Will you be in the middle of enacting new ideas for reviving your backlist or launching your next indie project?

Yes, you have to do the work. But the work becomes infinitely more possible when you know what you're doing, are sharing your insights, and can learn from others who've walked the same path.

Membership Amenities

When you join Thriving Writers today, you’ll get access to our:

• Workshops: Live faculty-led and asynchronous member-led opportunities to showcase your writing for supportive and constructive feedback.
• Live Events: Interactive presentations on craft and industry topics, featuring visits from authors and industry professionals.
• Office Hours and Writing Sprints: Regular opportunities to ask your questions, learn, do the work, and know you're not alone. We're here for you every step of the way.
• Chat and Forums: Discussion opportunities to network, share wins, crowd-source new solutions for pain points, and exchange resources. A Reading List forum and Habit Tracker keep you on the cutting edge of the industry and your own practice, respectively. We've also broken up discussion feeds by target audience, so you can cut right to advice that'll be most relevant to your work.
• Resource Library: An ever-expanding vault of every resource we've ever developed, with more being added all the time. Explore it at your own pace as you get involved with all of the other live programming.

An Advanced Perspective

Almost every other resource you'll find only (or which will find you via an Instagram ad) is all about firsts—writing your first query, nailing your first draft or revision, getting your first rejection letter. We get it. Good Story Company has made plenty of Writing 101 videos, articles, books, and classes. 

But who's out there bringing you actual publishing industry veterans to discuss how to have a good relationship with your literary agent? Or what happens when you and an agent part ways? What if your publisher doesn't jump all over your option book? How do you avoid getting lost in the midlist? Nobody's talking about this. Because nobody who's put a quick cash-grab course up on some spammy landing page has the perspective of almost twenty years in the traditional publishing industry. And let's face it, published authors are great people to learn from, but they only know about their own experiences.

Our founder, Mary Kole, has worked as a literary agent, in a publishing house, and, now, as a freelance editor, counseling tens of thousands of writers. She's also written seven (for now!) writing reference books, including Writing Irresistible Kidlit (Writer's Digest Books/Penguin Random House) and titles for her own Good Story Publishing imprint, many of which have been #1 new releases and Amazon category best-sellers. (She once reached #192 on the Amazon-wide best-seller list, but who's counting?!)

She's also the cofounder of a book packaging company, Bittersweet Books, with #1 New York Times-best-seller, Julie Murphy, and senior vice president of Folio Literary, John Cusick. This endeavor keeps her "in the room where it happens"—talking to acquisitions editors, publishing directors, foreign publisher scouts, and film agents about the latest market movements and what's compelling readers on a global scale. 

She regularly guest lectures at Harvard, the Ringling College of Art + Design, the Highlights Foundation, Writer's Digest, SCBWI, the Loft, and many other venerable institutions and organizations. She has partnered behind the scenes with Masterclass, Little Passports, NPR, and others. And she's opening up her Rolodex of contacts to bring unique, nuanced, and professional perspectives to the Thriving Writers community.

Even if you don't have an agent yet, or haven't released a book, you'll want to be a fly on the wall for these insights and conversations. And you can only find them here.

What Are You Waiting For?

Give Thriving Writers a try. It's everything we've ever wanted and could never find in the great wide world of available writing communities, courses, and standalone resources.

If you don't love it after your seven-day free trial, we offer a 30-day no-questions-asked money-back guarantee. Select a monthly or annual Thriving Writers membership, below, and let's pursue our passion and purpose together.